Celebrating Christmas Like Italians Do

Posted by NIHAOITALY

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December 23, 2016

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Celebrating Christmas Like Italians Do

Christmas is the most important festival in Italy, and it is usually celebrated on 25th of December for the birth of Jesus Christ. In fact there is a custom to exchange presents and to invite people at their house and offer them coffee and some home-made desserts or typical Christmas’ ones, but there are something important you need to know about the way Italians celebrate Christmas, here you can find what makes their Christmas so unique!

Food

There are quite a lot of dishes Italians usually make for the Christmas’ dinner and lunch, most of times they just decide by themselves what to cook (because every region in Italy has his own traditional dishes so it is hard to say what we mostly cook) but the most popular dishes are the followings.

Lasagne

Traditional lasagne is made by interleaving layers of pasta with layers of sauce, made with ragù, bechamel, parmigiano reggiano and chopped hard boiled eggs. In some regions and outside of Italy it is common to find lasagne made with ricotta or mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, various kind of meats (ground beef, pork or chicken), miscellaneous vegetables (spinach, zucchini, mushrooms) and typically flavored with wine, garlic, onion, and oregano. In all cases the lasagne are oven-baked.

Tortellini

They are very similar to Chinese dumplings. These ring-shaped pasta (sometimes also described as “navel shaped”), are typically stuffed with a mix of meat (pork loin, prosciutto) or cheese and served with broth, either of beef or chicken.

Turkey

It is similar to turkey Americans usually eat for Thanksgiving but is served differently. Turkey is usually not stuffed with anything, but served with potatoes or vegetables on the side.

Lasagne Tortellini Turkey

Pandoro

Pandoro (his literally name is “Golden Bread”) is a sweet yeast bread, which is traditionally shaped like a frustum with an 8 pointed-star section. It is often served dusted with vanilla-scented icing sugar made to resemble the snowy peaks of the Italian Alps during Christmas.

Panettone

Originally from Milan, Panettone is an Italian typical sweet bread loaf usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New year’s Eve. If you want to know more about story of this special bread, we will talk about it in the following article today.

Panettone Pandoro

Board Games & Decorations

During Christmas, Italians also play board games (such as Tombola) or play with cards. Tombola was played for the first time in Naples and the rule is similar to bingo; Italians also play cards, such as poker, too.

The best thing about Christmas in Italy is that usually all the cities are adorned with Christmas decorations and lights everywhere! In the most important monuments, they usually put a huge Christmas tree with breathtakingly decorations and lights, so that everyone could feel the Christmas atmosphere.